Yeah, my bumper shows it. My lip is now coming off on one side. I need to get a stock undertray to hold it all together.

Fo sho!

 

You and me both

that hasn't helped me any

 

I think Kevin's thread was a jinx.

 

Buttdyno,

Not sure where you are in the Mid-a, but we have a local place that sells 100 and 104 in 5g jugs. That is...when Karwan doesn't buy it all up. It's about 5mi west of of Frederick, right off 70.

Also, that lot in winchester is in bad shape....I hit that growing pot hole of death on every run. I just can't run fast with CDC. Not sure why.

It's a nice build...I plan to follow the progress.

 

Missed a GREAT event this weekend @ the Northern States National Tour (Toledo)... Man it was fun!

 

Brian congratulations on the win in Toledo - nice work. I'm looking forward to the CO PRO next weekend.

Sorry for the jinx on the front lip. The fix I posted seems to be working. I've done 2 events and it's holding up. I didn't post a photo - 3/4" styro foam from home depot and a tube of caulk for styro - the styro fills the gap between the lip and bumber cover. I just glued and clamped if for a few hours. I'll try to post a pic.

I also installed the Ciro camber/castor plate - good improvement, I recommend.

Kevin

 

Thanks Kevin. I would recommend the CiroDesign plates to anyone as well.. anyone aside from my competitors anyway.

 

Yeah, seeing the results made me really regret not being there. I don't know if I would have been in the mix, though!

I'm definitely curious. I still need an undertray... just need mitsubishiparts.net to get back to me.

Out of curiosity, what are your caster numbers? I believe I was +4.9 on one side and +5.0 on the other - just wondering if there's more to be had. On my WRX, I had some bushings from Whiteline which added about a half degree of caster, dunno if there's anything similar available for our cars.

OK, rather than guess I went to Whiteline's site. There's this, but it looks like it's all metal, no go for STU:
http://www.whiteline.com.au/product_...number=KCA400M

Bump steer correction kit?
http://www.whiteline.com.au/product_..._number=KCA388


This weekend is a doubleheader - Saturday with BMW club, Sunday with the SCCA. I will see how the car does on a faster course with the bigger rear bar at full stiff. Oh, and I'll try to get some damn video this time...

 

Howdy! Yeah I found some place in Leesburg that has it too, but decided it wasn't worth it. Something is clearly wrong with the car and figuring that out is the real priority. I'll get a leakdown test at some point and go from there.

That one spot at Winchester was a little rough, but overall it was good enough I think... certainly better than HG and Bowie overall even if the surface isn't quite as nice.

 

Well I have not checked caster this year, but let\'s just say the other evo drivers (that are running ASTs and Vorshlag plates) noticed how much more caster my setup had.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_svty8HalM

 

Event #13: NCCBMWCCA @ Waldorf, 7-9-2011

Setup (new stuff in bold):
Moton Clubsports
front: 3/7 compression, 3/7 rebound
rear: 6/6 (?) compression, 3/7 rebound
600/800 springs
-3 / -1, 0 toe
245-40-17 Dunlop Z1s on 17x9 SSR Type C RS, 15mm spacers in the front
36/36 psi
WORKS 24mm rear swaybar on full stiff
Conditions: high 80s/low 90s and sunny

I bumped the front compression a click, some sort of vague attempt to help keep the rear tires down.

At Winchester, a smaller course, the car had felt pretty good with the rear bar on full stiff. Waldorf is a medium sized lot, so it would be another opportunity to feel things out, but with higher speeds. Fedex is large though, so it may not carry over.

The course was fairly straightforward - pretty high average speed for the lot.
-hard launch with decent straight
-slow 180
-medium righthander into big lefthanded skidpad
-long straight into sort of lane change thing
-right sweeper, left sweeper, right sweeper, finish

Here’s a video of the course from the roof of one of the Subie guys (warning, it has music):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq29X...feedwll&list=W

I didn’t have the MaxQ so no video from me.

We ran first heat starting around 9:30. It was hot, but not too hot - I had to spray the fronts a couple times but not after every run.

First run (we got 5) - 47.3+1. Car felt pretty good, certainly not too twitchy. But there weren’t a lot of harsh transitions either.

Second run - got a rerun. I was ⅔ of the way through my run, and there was a freaking Camry creeping onto the course!

I stopped and honked and it went away. Apparently it was someone teaching their teenager how to drive. They apparently thought they were far enough away... anyway, I got a rerun.

Third run - 46.6. I stayed more patient in the slow 180 and subsequent righthander and was able to carry more speed through the fast quasi lane change.

Fourth run - 46.3. I got on the gas way too early in the final big righthand sweeper and the car pushed out wider than I wanted, but it felt very good otherwise.

Fifth run - I started out the run on the start line, realizing that I had left the fan on “2” for my fourth run. Crap. The A/C wasn’t on though so it probably didn’t matter. I took advantage of the straight start and used the OE launch control (I had been waiting to do this all year ). I ended up with a 46.6. I think the first 75% of the run was a little bit faster but I got on the gas wayyyy early for the last sweeper and pushed out super wide. Just stupidity on my part. One of my bad habits for a while was not getting on the gas early enough, and now I have the opposite problem.

I had a rerun left at this point. I had planned on waiving it, but I was kind of annoyed at myself for the prior run, so then I was going to take it again... but then I smelled clutch and decided to pack it in. Haven’t gotten the hang of the launch control yet :devil:

For sort of comparison, I ran the same heat as last year’s DC region STR champion, who was running his car with 225-width V710s, so sort-of CSP. He ended up with a 46.1. 03threefiftyz (BSP 350z) ran a 45.8 in the afternoon.

Edit: results are up. I had the 3rd fastest raw time, behind the BSP 350z and the sort of CSP NC Miata. Beating a supercharged E36 M3 on V710s

Anyway - no complaints about the car at all. It felt very good, no drama, very easy to pitch and catch. But how would it be at Fedex?

 

Event #14: WDCR/SCCA @ Fedex, 7-10-2011

Setup (new stuff in bold):
Moton Clubsports
front: 3/7 compression, 3/7 rebound
rear: 6/6 (?) compression, 3/7 rebound
600/800 springs
-3 / -1, 0 toe
245-40-17 Dunlop Z1s on 17x9 SSR Type C RS, 15mm spacers in the front
36/36 psi
WORKS 24mm rear swaybar on full stiff
Conditions: 90s and sunny

So the car felt great at Waldorf. The course at Fedex, designed/annotated by former Evo sort-of-owner, or perhaps leaser, Danny Kao, looked to have lots of very fast transitions and would be a good test for the balance of the setup.

We ran afternoon heat 1. It was really freaking hot at this point. Over the course of the day I had four Gatorades and 3 waters and I’m not even sure that was enough.

I was codriving with Ben again and the usual WDCR STU suspects were all there.

Run 1 started off pretty well. I kinda missed the first real braking zone, and used the brakes during the downhill chicago box, and didn't brake enough for the showcase (end zone 3/start zone 4). But, I took the rest of the skidpad ("Chicken Egg") pretty well, entered zone 3 well (adequate braking), and used a lot less distance in the fast lefthand sweeper (zone 5). I came in with a 54.6 clean. Shane came in behind me with a 54.0 (dirty) and I was pretty psyched to be that close in raw times after first runs.

Video:

Run 2 was sloppy. I somehow forgot how to take the start and it didn't go well after that. 55.4, +1.

Run 3, I fixed most of the mistakes from my 1st run, but made a whole bunch of new ones Breakdown in a sec. 55.0+1.

Video:

Run 4 was every mistake from run 3 but amplified. The last cone I hit went 20 feet into the air I think, something I don't think I've done before.

Shane got down to a 53.1 - only a tenth away from raw-timing XP! He PAX'd 2nd overall for the event, behind last year's SMF national champion Brian K (running on the SM PAX instead). Josh was 2nd with a 53.7 and Jon (California traitor) was 3rd with a 54.2. I ended up 4th.

On the brighter side, I pax'd 16th out of 186 behind some very fast people.

Run 1 vs Run 3 details

Yay data aq! What I usually do is break the runs into sections and figure out where I lost my time.


The course, with run 1 and run 3 from maxq plotted

Zone 1: Run 3 carried more speed but drove a little more distance. I was going 2 mph faster on run 3 than run 1 when I hit the brakes. If you believe the MaxQ, these runs were basically tied entering zone 2.

Zone 2 (skidpad): Run 1 took a much tighter line at the beginning (bottom right corner) but took a slightly too long line exiting (left side) and burned a bunch of distance. The two pretty much canceled each other out. Entering zone 3, the two runs were almost identical - 54.8 mph vs 55.4 mph.

Side note: Run 4's exit was better but then I got on the gas too early and pushed too far out. Exiting zone 2 into zone 3, run 1 peaked at 55 mph - run 4 only peaked at 45 mph. A pretty massive difference. So this is a concrete example of patience (not getting on the gas early) saving a boatload of time later. Just need to remember that when I'm doing it

Zone 3 (downhill): Run 3 missed the braking zone and had to wait for a long time before it could get back on the gas, but run 1 got it about right. During the first acceleration section, run 1 was at 50.5 mph compared to 42.0 mph for run 3 - and then exiting the Chicago box, run 1 was at 52 mph vs 48.7 for run 3. The MaxQ says that run 3 was .7 behind at this point.

Zone 4 (uphill slalom, big sweeper) ... run 1 spent a lot of extra distance here. By corner exit, run 3 "passed" run 1 (in the Mario Kart ghost sense), despite losing a half second earlier in the run. At the end of the uphill slalom, run 3 was .3 ahead! But run 1 gave it up earlier than run 3, and made all that time back by the start of zone 5.

Zone 5 (big sweeper, kink, finish): As you can tell from the graph, run 3 added a whole ton of distance and drove a MUCH longer more painful line (also hitting an outside gate cone in the process). Entering the final braking zone, run 1 was back to a .4 lead. The two runs took very different lines through the finish, but they were equivalent time wise.

So if you dovetail the good parts of run 1 (most of it) with the fixes from run 3 (better "egg", much better showcase) there is a fast run in there somewhere. Run 1 gave up a full second by burning all that extra distance in the sweeper - massive. I saw something similar at Toledo in 2009 when I pushed out too wide trying to conserve momentum and compared it to my codriver Brad's run and saw that just over that short amount of course I had lost a full second. Since then I have tried to stick to the mantra of "distance is king" and never tried to drive a momentum line.

The takeaways for me:

* The car is pretty fast
* Give it up in the sweepers, stupid!

Special guest driver piknockout!

This year, DC region has done fun runs after the event - for some small fee you get 4 more runs, whether it's to play with setup, exorcise demons, or whatever

Josh wanted to try my car, and I wanted him to try it, so he took two cracks at it - 55.4 + lots and 54.4 +lots. Ignoring the cones, it was very valuable feedback. The STi and the Evo are radically different with the STi behaving more like a RWD car at corner exit and the Evo behaving (comparatively) more like a FWD car at corner exit. I hope that behavior will change a little when I get my rear diff sorted, but that's how it is for now.

I drove Josh's STi earlier this year and the style is - get on the gas a little bit, early, and just add as much gas as you can while unwinding the wheel (but under no circumstances do you go WOT unless the car is pointed straight ). The Evo, especially with the stiff rear bar, is very much a pitch-and-catch car - lift to get a little rotation and then mat the gas again to exit. So that is naturally an adjustment. Josh felt like it was a little too lift-throttle-oversteery, and that makes sense - it had been spot on at slower speed stuff, so it stands to reason that it might be a bit much for the higher speed transitions at Fedex. I think I'm going to back the bar off to the soft setting next weekend and see if that's enough.

Josh also noted that the brakes sucked. Oh yeah, forgot about that. I had been meaning to get pads for a while but hadn't gotten around to it. I ordered a set of HP+ yesterday so hopefully I'll be able to get them on and bedded for this weekend.

He also said the power came on suddenly. Yeah yeah. Damned 2.5L STis!

It was good feedback and encouraging that he beat my raw time after only 2 runs. I think with a couple more chances to get a feel for it he'd have been in the 53's easily.

Next weekend

Another doubleheader! The National Street Tire Challenge is at Fedex on Saturday and then there's another WDCR event on Sunday. The football season has compressed our schedule a bit - normally there would only be one points event per month, but we're doing 2 in July and 2 in August this year.

Rest of the year

The car has come along quickly. It has most of the hard parts at this point. What's left for this year is pretty minor:

* front brake pads (HP+)
* Seat lowering brackets (for that "racecar" feel)
* Get the rear diff built right
* more front camber (need different strut slot thingies from Moton)
* light battery (maybe, maybe next year)
* hood props (prop rod gets hot, is annoying)

Everything other than that should just be screwing with settings.

 

Yeah, I was trying to get used to the higher top speed combined with more twitchiness and less brakes. Overall I would say that your car is around 0.75s off of mine as it stands. I think we could have gained some time with the 18's on since it was a fairly high speed course. Also our tires are at the end of their life, so not sure what that's worth. I'm doing a lot of extrapolation here. But clearly the answer is fix the diff/brakes/power and the car is there. The lag is definitely noticeable, but once it gets on power and is able to keep going without hitting a rev limiter, it starts feeling really fast! Overall the car is on the right track and I look forward to seeing its progression.

 

Car seems to be quicker every event. Ran well this weekend IMO.

 

Let me know your experience with the HP+. I bought a set and just couldn't handle the noise, installed the Ferodo 2500 and pretty happy. One of the mods you should consider is drilling a second adjustment in the front sway. It's a PITA but it makes a difference. So much that I'm considering doing a front bar. To be fair my spring rates are a bit softer so it may benefit you less. Worth considering.

Kevin